Wednesday, August 28, 2013

The grief is always there, I’ve taken Stephen Colbert’s excellent advice to simply make a place for grief, to acknowledge that it’s always at the door and will find a way in if I don’t welcome it. I don’t try to shut it down, and sometimes I make specific plans to give it the space it needs. - I know this with my head. Now I just have to explain it to my heart. (Jana Reiss)

It was approximately 8.30 a.m. on a busy morning when an elderly gentleman in his eighties arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He stated that he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9.00 a.m.

I took his vital signs and had him take a seat. I knew it would take more than an hour before someone would to able to attend to him. I saw him check his watch anxi.ously for the time and decided to evaluate his wound since I was not busy with another patient.

On examination, the wound was well healed. Hence, I talked to one of the doctors to get the supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound.

We began to engage in a conversation while I was taking care of his wound. I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment later as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no and said that he needed to go to the nursing home to have breakfast with his wife.

I inquired about her health. He told me that she had been in the nursing home for a while as she was a victim of Alzheimer's disease. I probed further and asked if she would be upset if he was slightly late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was and she had not been able to recognize him since five years ago.I asked him in surprise, "And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?"He smiled as he patted my hand and said, "She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is."

I had to hold back my tears as he left.I had goose bumps on my arm, and I thought, "That is the kind of love I want in my life."

True love is neither physical nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be.

"The real challenge for me has been in trying to expand my mind enough to comprehend my own catastrophe without letting it become that way. I've tried to let it just be part of me, part of who I am becoming, and to always keep in mind what I have gained, not just what I've lost. This story doesn't end, and it doesn't need to be a tragedy. It's still a story of love, even if it's love under trial." ~Brooke Hopkins

Thursday, August 15, 2013

On Time

Lately I've been thinking a lot about time; how we try to condense it, stretch it, pause it, fast-forward and erase it. I've been thinking about how we try to control it and make it ours, or fight it, or ignore it, or wrap it with a bow and bestow it as a gift that isn't ours to give. I've been thinking about how much energy we exert on trying to bend something so immalleable, and why we relentlessly toil in a task so futile. Time is both short and inexorable, coveted and dispelled, treasured and wasted, fleeting and tangible. Time is our most valued currency, but it can't be bartered, bought or sold. Time is quite an elusively peculiar creature, and the more I think about it, the more difficult it becomes to define and understand.

Harper had her first day of Preschool on Monday. On Sunday night, I packed her backpack with sunscreen, a change of clothes and a water bottle as her teacher had instructed. I laid out the grey leggings and blue unicorn T-shirt she had picked out at Target. I put Goldfish and dried mangos in her Ninja Turtles snackbox, then sat at the kitchen table and cried. For months I had been waiting for this time. I had been looking forward to the nine hours each week I could spend doing whatever I pleased. For so long, I had wanted time to speed up so that I could have a little to myself. But the night before sending my only daughter off to school, I was crying at the kitchen table, begging time to keep my child a baby forever.

The next day I picked Harper up from preschool and sat down with her for lunch. We ate grilled cheese sandwiches and made funny faces with each other. I listened to her guttural laugh and smiled sitting at the table I had cried on the night before. I looked at her laughing face and wondered if I had ever been happier. It was a moment of pure elation, one that I wanted to pause and repeat over and over like a scene from my favorite movie.

I've been thinking a lot about that simple lunch, wondering why it brought such deep joy. I dissected the events trying to isolate the happiness variable; grilled cheese, carrots, hummus, funny faces, laughter. No factor had any intrinsic connection to happiness. I finally realized that the joy came from being entirely immersed in that moment in time. I wasn't thinking about what to make for dinner, or how the bathroom needed to be cleaned, or when Rivers needed the car. My only concern was the sound of Harper's laughter, the way her eyes turned to slits when she smiled just like her dad, and how perfectly wild she was. I realized how seldom I find myself truly immersed in time. For all of the ways I try to change time, or spend it, or make it go away, I very rarely appreciate what time has brought me.

When Harper was a newborn, I couldn't wait for her to smile, babble and crawl. When she was mobile, I thought about how fun it would be when she could walk. When she ran, I was excited for her to talk. Now that she's talking (incessantly), I sometimes wish she was a newborn again so that I could cuddle her and bask in her innocence. I've enjoyed every stage of her existence, but like with most things in life, I've looked forward to the next phase or relished the past more than I've lived in the present.

It seems only when time is threatened to be taken away from me that I truly appreciate it. How much more enriched would my life be if I chose to live fully in every moment? I exert so much energy on trying to control, fix and trap time, but when it's finally in my hands, do I truly appreciate it?

I'm writing this blog to remember that grilled cheese lunch of laughter, the one when I wasn't looking at the clock or the dirty dishes or the unfolded laundry. The lunch that I wasn't carrying on a half-interested conversation with Harper while writing a grocery list, or To Do list, or planning the afternoon's activities in my head. I'm writing this blog to remember that all the planning, scheduling and organization means nothing if I don't make the most of my time when I'm in it. I don't want to have another Dr. Seussian moment of "How did it get so late so soon?" as I did crying on the kitchen table lamenting the loss of Harper's babyhood.

This is to document a journey. We began in September, 2012, but it probably began much sooner, and we didn't know it. It began with my asking you a simple question: "Have you had breakfast?" And you answered, "I don't know." I don't know.

Truthfully, you really really didn't know. That had been your answer to many of my questions lately. I don't know. I had thought you were just blowing me off, had other things on your mind. That you truly didn't know was unthinkable. You said later that it was if "a curtain had dropped" in your memory. You couldn't remember where our sons live. Where the market is. Where the bank is.

"We have to go to the bank, right?"
"Yes."
"Where is it we're going again?"
"To the bank, to get money to take the boys to the fair."
"We're going to the bank, right? What are we going there for?"
"To get money for the fair."
"Oh, that's right." We arrive at the bank. "Now, what are we doing here?"

It's scary. For me, and I suppose it is for you as well. Where is this journey taking us?

About Me

1. In dreams I am often young and thin with long blond hair.
2. In real life I am no longer young, or thin, or blonde.
3. My back hurts.
4. I hate to sleep alone. (Fortunately I don't have to!)
5. My great grandfather had 2 wives at once.
6. I wish I had more self-discipline. (I was once fired from a teaching position in a private school because they said I was "too unstructured and undisciplined." --Who, me??? Naaaahhh....)
7. I do not blame my parents for this. Once, at a parent-teacher conference, the teacher told me my little boy was "spacey." We ALL are, I told her. The whole fan damily is spacey. She thought I was kidding. I wasn't.
8. I used to travel with a theater reperatory company. My parents weren't happy about this.
9. My mother was afraid that I would run off and paint flowers on my cheeks and live in a commune, and grow vegetables. I once smoked pot. ONE TIME.
10. I don't drink or smoke. (Or swear, much. Well, I drink milk, and water, and orange juice, and stuff. Cocoa. I love Pepsi.) 11. Most of my friends are invisible. 12.
I am a poet and a writer.
All of my writing on these pages is copyrighted. Borrowing (without acknowledgment) is a sin.